“At CIRA, we try to keep track of all the great .CA websites out there, but with over 1.6 million registered .CA sites it’s hard to keep up,” says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA. “The .CA Impact Awards has really opened our eyes to some of the amazing work done on the web by Canadians. It’s truly inspiring.”

The awards were broken down in four broad categories, the winners for each category are:

• eLearning: ArtsAlive.CA, an educational performing arts website produced by the National Arts Centre, is the pre-eminent resource for performing arts education in Canada, engaging Canadians through information, multimedia and activities.
• Small Business:  OpenMedia.CA uses its .CA website to protect the open Internet and to promote the innovation and free speech that it enables. OpenMedia.ca is currently the home of the viral Stop the Meter campaign (http://openmedia.ca/meter), that brings the public together to fight for a more affordable Internet.
• Non-Profit: UppercaseGallery.CA is now an online artist community, featuring a blog, exhibitions, and a magazine. UppercaseGallery began as a gallery in downtown Calgary that featured the work of emerging and established graphic designers before moving online. Its .CA domain name allows Uppercase Gallery to clearly define itself as Canadian, as much of its web traffic is international.
• Web Technology and Design: NewPad.CA is an online apartment-hunting portal intended to make apartment hunting easier by mapping out online apartment listings in cities across Canada.

The .CA Impact Awards are part of CIRA’s ongoing commitment to invest in Canada’s Internet community and are designed to recognize youth, educators, not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, technology developers and web designers.  

The .CA Impact Awards are designed to recognize youth, educators, not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, technology developers, and web designers for their innovation, the quality of their work, and the impact of their .CA websites and applications.

“The awards program will help us celebrate excellence and share best practices with .CA domain name holders from coast to coast,” says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA. “We understand the Internet is more than technology – it is a significant force, a catalyst, and a powerful agent of social change. That’s why the .CA Impact Awards celebrates the impact of .CA websites and applications.”

CIRA is looking for people and organizations that use their .CA websites to make a positive difference in the lives of their users and those around them. Impact can be social, cultural, political, technological, or economic.

There are four broad categories for entries: E-Learning, Small Business, Not-for-Profit, and Web Technology. Entries for the 2010 awards will be received until March 25, 2011. . Judging will take place in May2011 and will be announced at the Mesh Conference in Toronto on May 25, 2011.

Winners of the Impact Awards will receive $5,000 each and the added visibility which comes from winning a national award.

For more information about the CIRA .CA Impact Awards, eligibility, judges, prizing, or to submit an entry, visit us at www.impactawards.ca, write to us at sheila.bergeron@cira.ca or follow-us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube.

“Hundreds of dot-ca domain name Registrants use dot-ca domain names for personal and business reasons. As using these new technologies becomes more important to strengthen customer loyalty there couldn't be a more suitable speaker for our AGM this year,” said Byron Holland, President and CEO, Canadian Internet Registration Authority.

MacArthur has had a prominent career as a consultant for Hewlett-Packard, Bell, Microsoft and Adobe in the research of the latest Web networks. 

She is the co-founder of Arktyp (which designed TWiT.tv – one of the most influential podcast networks in the world) and served as a strategist for Razorfish. She was hired by a motivational speaker and author, Tony Robbins, as a lead consultant for his social networking site.

"As the Web 2.0 world continues to grow and expand, it's important to understand which applications are the most useful insofar as building community online,” said MacArthur. “At the CIRA event, I'm going to highlight some of these leading tech tools and address how they can play into the dot-ca domain."

MacArthur is scheduled to give her keynote presentation on September 10, 2008 at 2:30 pm at the Pan Pacific Hotel (Crystal Pavilion Ballroom), 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, BC.

CIRA’s Annual General Meeting 2008 will kick off the start of the online 2008 CIRA Board of Directors Election Campaign Forum where the public and CIRA Members can ask the Candidates their questions and directly participate in shaping the Internet future in Canada.

For more information visit www.cira.ca or to schedule an interview:

Melisa Durak-Buljubasic
Public Relations and Communications Specialist
Phone: 613-237-5335 ext: 294
Cell: 613-219-5328
melisa.db@cira.ca

Register for our AGM 2008

Upcoming Events – John Demco at UBC, Vancouver

The Faculty of Science and the Department of Computer Science at The University of British Columbia is recognizing the accomplishments of Mr. John C. Demco, and his role in developing the dot-ca domain name and registry by naming the computer science student learning centre in his honor in Vancouver, BC on September 9th, 2008.

http://www.uilo.ubc.ca/demco/